Here’s All you Need to Know About Creating Digital Products that Sells

As of today, we can’t think of any business that gives you the luxury to earn some cool cash while you sleep other than e-commerce businesses. Despite the economic fluctuations that plague countries, the e-commerce industry continues to thrive and flourish. It’s an industry that’s quite large and filled with several opportunities, ideas, and options that enable you to make money online. One popular option is Digital products. The market of digital products is growing exponentially and making a lot of success that entrepreneurs are making the switch to the digital commerce industry and creating profitable business for themselves.  

What is a Digital Product?

A digital product is a non-physical software-enabled product created in a digital format sold over the internet and is only accessible by electronic devices such as your laptops, smartphones, tablets, or PCs.

E-books, online courses, mentorships, podcasts, webinars, video classes, infographics, website templates, spreadsheets, and memberships are popular digital products. These products often come in downloadable or streamable files, such as MP3s, PDFs, videos, plug-ins, and templates. Most businesses now are heavily software-driven. Some products and services are made up mostly or entirely of software such as your favourite service car app Uber or Bolt, mobile banking apps, Instagram or your Facebook messaging app.

A digital product can cover a wide range of topics such as entrepreneurship, branding, sales & marketing, business, career, etc. 

Who can create digital products?

Anyone. Practically anyone ready to put in the hard work, knowing fully well that success is not achieved overnight or by a stroke of luck. As long as you’ve got great ideas and skills that can add value to people’s lives, you are ready to create your first digital product. 

Start with an idea: The first step is simple. Have an idea that’s innovative and creative. It doesn’t have to be anything ‘big or mind-blowing’. Every business started with an idea. Brainstorm ideas for the kind of content you want to create and sell. Ensure the content is valuable to your target audience and not some obscure content they would pass over. 

Practice your idea: If your idea is a vegetarian recipe e-book, start writing or practice cooking more vegetarian dishes. If it’s paid newsletters, then start writing samples to sharpen your writing skills. For every digital product idea you have, you have to validate the idea, research extensively, and make adequate plans to bring the ideas to life. 

Know your skill/skills: You would be surprised how many people would be willing to pay to learn your skills. Brainstorm what kind of skills and talents you have. You might have some skills or talents and be oblivious of how to make them a source of income. Search deep within you or ask your friends or family to help you recognise your skills and talents.

Here are some skills to watch out for (all these skills can be turned into digital products):

• You speak a foreign language and can translate.
• You are great at SEO.
• You help your friends or former college mates build/improve their resumes.
• You can teach.
• You can edit podcasts or videos.
• You are efficient at transcribing.
• You can recommend good skincare/makeup products.
• You can bake/cook great meals
• You are fit and can teach exercise routines.
• You know the best tourist sites in the country or continent.

Choose a format for your product

Now define the best format that’s suitable for your content. A step by step video showing the process of you baking a muffin would be great instead of an ebook or a podcast. That way, your target audience would find it relatable and can watch you while making their muffin. You should also be aware that creating a video takes more than an ebook. For instance, you will need a good camera, a microphone, a system that can edit your videos, and all the ingredients that go into baking. You must consider the resources you have available and the interest of your target audience when choosing a format for your content.

These are the most used formats:

• Podcasts
• Ebooks
• Infographics
• Video courses
• Video classes
• Case studies

Customer research

A research on your potential customers is an important aspect of creating a digital product. After all, you can’t sell your product to a customer you know nothing about. If you want your business to succeed, it’s important to understand your customers. Knowing them better will help you create more engaging content, lead to more sales, and help you deliver good customer service, thereby building strong customer relationships. Start by creating a persona for your customer to help you tailor your content to meet the specific needs of your target audience.

Here’s a template to guide you create a buyer persona:

• Define their basic characteristics (age, gender, title, location, stage of life, language, interests, income level, spending power and patterns).
• Know which social media channels your target audience uses.
• Identify the key pain points in their life and how your product provides solutions.
• What solutions have they tried before they discovered your product?
• Identify your customer goals and aspirations and how your product will help them achieve those goals.

Get to work

With this information on what digital products are and what you need to create one, roll up your sleeves and get to work. You can only sell when you’ve created a product. Remember to put all that you’ve learned into practice and watch out for reviews/feedback from your customers.

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Featured image: istockphoto